


Any Way You Love Me

by Nimtheriel



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Crack Fic, Crack Treated Seriously, Fenris makes bad jokes, Garrett Hawke makes bad jokes, Hawke is a dork, M/M, Mostly Fluff, Wanting children, Warden Bethany Hawke, a couple of dorks being dads, bethany is pretty ooc but so much fun to write, couple years after kirkwall, fenhawke functioning as a healthy couple, fenris is more chill, gay couple wants biological kids, i dont know how to timeline so shhhh, i mean canon compliant but also ???, magic transitions, mentioned Bethany/Isabella, more tags to come, mostly at hawke's expense, pretty much a crack fic, purplish hawke, so obviously they gonna use magic, updates tuesdays because i am an Adult with a Schedule, vanity about beards
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-10 08:11:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14733228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nimtheriel/pseuds/Nimtheriel
Summary: Two years after the events at Kirkwall's Circle, Garrett and Fenris have stopped running and started building a life. Perhaps it is also time to build a family.





	1. A Night on the Town

**Author's Note:**

> If you have baby names you might like to see (any gender), drop a comment! Just, y'know, in case.  
> Updates Tuesdays (hopefully)

Everyone was surprised when Fenris expressed a desire for children before Garrett.  
It happened on a clear autumn evening while they were away from home chasing a job. The village of Duntown ended up on fire, and of course wherever there’s smoke there’s a Hawke.  
He didn’t start the fire. This was repeatedly insisted to an unamused, slightly scorched Fenris who had come to pull the idiot from a flaming building.  
“I leave you in a pub for ten minutes,” Fenris groused, heaving the significantly larger Garrett out a window.  
Garrett landed on his ass and bounced right back up to try to help Fenris, who had already leapt nimbly over the sill to join him on safe ground.  
“I didn’t cause this!” Garrett protested once more. “You know, I’m insulted. I honestly am.”  
Fenris brushed soot from the front of his clothing and gave him a Look.  
“It was this man, he was so far into his cups he was hiccuping the Orlesian anthem. Knocked a candle over.”  
“Hawke--”  
“It landed in a woman’s lap,” Garrett continued. “Her skirt caught fire. She started shrieking and running around like a chicken with its head cut off.”  
“Hawke--”  
“Then there was a puddle of whiskey, and the table started up--”  
“Garrett!” Fenris made a sharp gesture with one hand, a tiny smile hiding in his lips nonetheless. “I believe you. Shall we move away from the burning building?”  
Garrett blinked. “Oh. Yes. Let’s.”  
They made there way quickly to the town square, where men and women rushed about with buckets of water. Garrett stepped in immediately and began directing a brigade to make the flow faster. He may have been a stranger in town, but he was a towering figure with a loud voice and a level head. An authority was an authority in times of crisis. People listened.  
The fire had spread to a couple nearby houses. As panicked villagers ran out into the street, a wail rose up from the doorway of a flaming cottage.  
“Get out here, Timmont! You’ll cook alive!”  
Someone dragged the man into the street, though he fought. “My daughter! My little girl is in there!”  
Garrett exchanged a glance with Fenris.  
“Keep the water coming,” he shouted to the villagers, then both of them took off.  
The house was oppressively hot, even from the outside. It was a two-story cottage, well-maintained. Smoke pooled around the ceiling and a deafening roar seemed to surround on all sides. Garrett coughed and ducked his head. Next to him, he saw Fenris slip into Lyrium Ghost. Without a word, they split up to search, with Fenris bounding upstairs and Garrett remaining to search the ground floor. He knocked over tables and tore open cupboards, frantically thinking of somewhere a little girl would run to hide from a fire. He had almost exhausted all of his options when he felt rather than heard Fenris’s call for help. He was upstairs in an instant.  
The heat was worse, much worse. Garrett dropped into an army crawl to escape the worst of it. He shuffled around broken, burning furniture until he came to where Fenris was straining with both hands to hold up one end of a large beam. Underneath it was a terrified child, curled up into the smallest ball possible with her face hidden behind her hands.  
With no time for gentle coaxing, Garrett grabbed her around the waist and dragged her free. Fenris dropped the beam with a crash and a fury of sparks and fell to one knee coughing.  
“Let’s go,” Garrett yelled. Fenris nodded, dropping to a crouch.  
With a trembling little one over his shoulder, Garrett stumbled back down the stairs and out the door, trusting that Fenris would follow. The heat receded shockingly quick, leaving Garrett shivering in his sweat-soaked tunic. He looked over his shoulder, and suddenly Fenris was next to him, still coughing but with a victorious light in his eyes.  
The child was returned to her father, a little sooty but otherwise unharmed. The man hugged her close and began to weep, barely able to choke out his gratitude. Hawke and Fenris retreated a ways to give him space.  
The fire in the child’s house was the only one left burning. Soon, Garrett’s bucket brigade had it quenched and smouldering.  
Fenris leaned on Garrett, still coughing and inspecting the forming blisters on his hands.  
“That looks bad,” Garrett noted.  
Fenris smiled tiredly. “It will heal. It was worth it.” His eyes refocused. “Garrett. How are you barely burned? My hands got fucked up and I had my lyrium to protect me.”  
“Do you think the Champion of Kirkwall would allow mere fire to harm him?” Garrett asked loftily. “I am beyond such petty mortal--” Fenris shoved him. “Fuh, I have an amulet of fire resistance.”  
“Well,” the elf said. “I’m glad.”  
They watched the embers settle and the agitated townsfolk talking among themselves. To one side, the father stood by his ruined house, beaming as he planted kiss after sooty kiss in his daughter’s hair while she obstinately fought to wriggle from his embrace.  
A sliver of air escaped Fenris’s parted lips. Garrett wouldn’t have even noticed had the elf not been resting against him. “What?”  
Fenris’s eyes didn’t stray from the scene in front of them. “We should get one of those,” he murmured.  
Garrett wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “A house fire?”  
Fenris turned to give him an exaggerated expression of unamusement. That meant he thought Garrett was funny. “A child.”  
Garrett continued to be confused. What did Fenris want a child for? Then he glanced at the red favor around the elf’s wrist that had been there for five long years.  
“Wait, you want-- You mean us--? A--”  
Fenris cut him off with a kiss, which Garrett was grateful for. The elf pulled away a scant inch, smirking. “You’re an idiot, Garrett Hawke.”  
“I am. Yessir,” Garrett agreed. He closed the gap between them again for a few blissful seconds before drawing back with a sigh. “Well, now that our inn has burned down we’d better set up camp.”

 

They didn’t speak of children again until they were back in the city they’d called home for six months -- their longest residency anywhere since Kirkwall.  
Garrett lay on top of the covers, feeling content and lazy. “Fen,” he said at length, “do you ever wish I was a woman?”  
A muffled “what the fuck” came from the other side of the bed. The elf rolled over to stare at him. “Is that what you’re worried about? Not the religious fanatics after us, not the uncertain future, not whether we’ll be discovered and run from town--you’re lying awake wondering if I would prefer you as a woman?”  
“Well it sounds silly when you say it. I’m not worried, exactly. It’s just--well, you said last week--”  
“After the fire?”  
“--yeah. Do you wish I could give you children?”  
“Huh.” Fenris was quiet for a moment. “I never thought I’d want children. I was always on the run, hunted--”  
“I don’t know how to break this to you, love, but have you checked the wanted posters recently?”  
“It’s different,” Fenris said simply. “With you here, I’m not afraid.”  
Hawke smiled up at the ceiling and found Fenris’s hand with his. “So you do? Want children, that is.”  
Long, slender fingers intertwined with his own. “I want to see you as a father. I want something for us to protect together. I want a little elf with your kind eyes to grow up free and loved.”  
“I’ll be damned,” Garrett said softly, “you’re a romantic after all.”  
There was a quiet chuckle by his ear. “Don’t tell Varric.”  
Fenris fell asleep shortly after that exchange. Garrett remained awake for a time, thinking.

 

Over the next few days, Garrett found the city suddenly swarmed with children.  
“There haven’t always been this many, right?” he asked Fenris in the marketplace, watching gaggles of younguns scampering underfoot.  
Fenris shrugged. “It appears to be the usual flocks.”  
“Huh.” Garrett watched a boy and a girl sprint hand-in-hand through a crowded area, dodging past carts, barrels, and stalls while ignoring the squawks of adults whose legs they ran through. He saw them arrive, red-faced and huffing, at a stall selling sweet rolls. His eyes wandered onwards to a man with a baby on his shoulder, chatting amiably with a store owner across a counter of fresh fruit. The baby appeared to be asleep, but then opened its eyes as if knowing Garrett was looking. From across the market, the round-eyed expression looked curious, quizzical. Garrett smiled at the baby. The baby’s face contracted into a disgruntled pout and it hid its face back in the father’s shoulder.  
With a slight ache, Garrett realized the last time he'd held a baby was when Bethany and Carver were born. He remembered having to sit down and brace against his knees when he held Carver. Not only was his brother a large baby, he squirmed and squalled constantly unless he was in Malcolm Hawke’s arms. Bethany, on the other hand, was a small babe - so small her parents had been worried - and she was mostly quiet. Garrett had held her so, so carefully, afraid she would break. Then she’d opened her big golden eyes, and his fear was lost in wonder. He was holding a tiny person who shared his blood, who would grow up to be a real human being some day. He would have been, Maker, around seven at the time. Had it really been almost thirty years?  
He tugged the sleeve next to him. “Fenris, I’m old.”  
“You’re in the prime of your life, Hawke,” Fenris responded without looking up from the wines he was examining.  
“That’s something you say to old people.”  
The elf turned to face him, a slight smirk on his face. “What brought this on? Did you find another grey hair in your beard?”  
Garrett’s hands flew to his _perfect, well-kept_ facial hair, horror rising. “What do you mean, ‘another’? Fenris? _Fen!_ ”  
The elf danced away, Orlesian dark in hand, cackling like the villain he was.


	2. Chapter 2

Garrett went to bed late that night after checking in the mirror to reassure himself that yes, his gorgeous, flattering facial hair was all still an inky black. The hair at his temples had been streaked with silver for a couple years now (a trait Fenris had called “rugged” and “intriguing”), but it was the beard that really mattered.  
He climbed under the blankets carefully to avoid disturbing a sleepy Fenris. He needn’t have worried; the elf mumbled something in warm, quiet Tevene and wrapped his slender arms around Garrett’s chest, all apparently without waking.  
The human snuggled closer, contentment sinking into his body. Home again.  
He dreamed he was holding baby Carver. Carver kept squirming, fighting to break free as Garrett struggled to contain him. The odd thing was, Carver kept growing in size, or at least trying to, while Garrett tried to stop him. This went on for some time before Carver rolled or maybe Garrett lost hold and the brothers reached for one another in a moment of terror, falling--  
Garrett woke in a sweat, eyes itching and hands trembling.  
He wondered sometimes if Carver, growing up in the shadow of his brother, would still have blocked that ogre’s path if he hadn’t always, _always_ been looking for ways to prove himself.  
Garrett wondered sometimes if he was the reason Carver would never get grey hairs or lie in bed with a lover of his own.  
The tears came, slow and silent, dropping gently into the blankets bunched up over his lap. He didn’t think he’d made any noise, but Fenris was awake anyways, pulling Garrett into his faintly luminous embrace. No words, just the soft circle of one hand on Garrett’s shoulder.  
It was over soon. Garrett let out a tired sigh and hugged Fenris back. The elf kissed him gently on the cheek, the temple, the ear.  
It had happened nine years ago. Garrett had made his peace. What was most distressing in the moment, he decided, was that Carver would never have children. Nor would Bethany, as a Grey Warden. No more little Hawkes to hold carefully, to fill him with wonder and love for a tiny thing. When Garrett turned silver and drifted away - if he even lived that long - when Bethany at last succumbed to the corruption of the Taint, none would be left in the world with Malcolm Hawke’s quick tongue or Leandra Amell’s sad smile.  
He thought then of the elf in his arms, of a sister estranged and lost and probably dead. He thought about a world without Fenris’s lovely green eyes and cool wit.  
“Fenris?”  
“Here, _amatus._ ”  
“Let’s make a child.”  
“What the fuck.”  
Garrett pulled away enough to face Fenris, whose brow was pinched in confusion.  
“Garrett, you do know how--”  
“Of course I know! Just, well, if it was possible, would that be something you wanted?”  
Fenris hesitated. Even in the dark, Garrett could see the longing in his eyes. He waited, watching Fenris pick his words one by one before speaking.  
“I...would do a great deal...to hold our child.” He lowered his eyes. “You are no doubt searching for a solution in magic.”  
It was Garrett’s turn to choose his words. “It had occurred to me,” he said slowly. “But it’s probably not possible.”  
“If it was?” He sounded almost hungry.  
“I would want it,” Garrett said, “but only if you did, too.”  
There was silence for a long time.  
“We should visit your sister,” Fenris said.

 

On a night some weeks later, they were returning home when Garrett spotted a scruffy urchin with a parchment envelope. His heart lifted; it had been two weeks since he’d written Bethany.  
The urchin squinted at them suspiciously as they approached. “Who’s you?” he addressed Garrett.  
“Uh,” said Garrett.  
“Do you have a letter?” Fenris interrupted.  
The urchin nodded and offered the slightly grubby envelope. “Message fer th’ elf with tattoos.”  
Fenris accepted the item while Garrett dug out a few silver pieces to give the child. Payment received, the urchin nodded and took off into the evening, bare feet pattering over the cobbles.  
Garrett let them in, hanging his cloak on a peg by the door. “I expect you’re the easier to describe between the two of us,” he said to Fenris. The elf offered him the letter.  
“It was given to you,” Garrett said with a smile. “You should read it.”  
Fenris’s brow furrowed a bit, but he nodded.  
They settled into their little house, Fenris seated on one of their antiquated wooden chairs with the letter while Garrett stood behind to look over his shoulder.  
_“G,”_ the note began, _“It’s so good to hear from you. I’ve been meaning to write you for some time. I am glad to hear you and F have settled in. I have done likewise at the new base, which is much larger than the one by KW. There were many people to meet but not many are Wardens. Sometimes it feels like there are only four of us in all the Free Marches._  
“I must say, I was surprised to hear you and F are thinking about children. I have some ideas, but I will need time to es-- ex--”  
“Experiment,” Garrett provided.  
“--experiment,” Fenris continued with a nod. _“It will likely be a week or more before you receive this letter. By that time, I should be preparing for an… excursion with the other Wardens. We have heard rumors of darkspawn near the village of Duntown and will be investigating. If you happen to be in that area at the time, I would more than likely have time to catch up and tell you about what I have learned._  
“My love to you both, and may the Maker watch over you. --B.”  
Fenris folded the letter. “Perhaps we should have mentioned our activities in Duntown.”  
“For the last time, Fen, I didn’t start that fire.”  
“I meant how we cleared out the darkspawn nest,” Fenris clarified.  
“Right, that too,” Garrett agreed. “Well, any letter we send at this point wouldn’t likely reach her before she and the other Wardens set out. We could meet them there, I suppose. What do you say?”  
Fenris toyed with the parchment. “I worry your sister will have no answers for us. I worry she will have an answer, but one that I...that we...don’t want to hear.”  
Garrett settled his hands on the elf’s shoulders and began to gently knead the muscles there. “I know, love. Maybe we should wait.”  
First arching his back, then relaxing, Fenris began to melt into Garrett’s touch. “I never said we shouldn’t-- _oh, there_ \-- shouldn’t go. I am merely expressing my... _hmmm_ concerns.” Fenris’s head was slowly nodding down onto his chest, his voice becoming drowsy. “Hawke, it’s difficult for me to be properly anxious with you doing that.”  
Garrett smirked privately. “Oh, my mistake.” He started to lift his hands, but Fenris snatched them in his own and pressed them down again.  
“Don’t stop,” he growled. “Harder.”  
“Funny, I remember saying the same thing last night.”  
“Ah, fuck you, Garrett,” Fenris murmured fondly.  
“You most certainly did,” Garrett agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wOw is it just me or is Thursday actually Tuesday. Today is Tuesday. Goodnight.


End file.
